Most Extreme Elimination Challenge - 2003-2007

A little while back, my wife and I were at one of those used CD/DVD stores and found the first season of  Most Extreme Elimination Challenge (also known as just MXC) on DVD.  That's when shit got real.  Turns out we were both big fans, having watched it when it was originally on Spike TV back in 2003.  That's pretty cool, man, and that's one of those reasons I married this girl.  She watched and liked MXC.

TNN became Spike and reinvented themselves with new shows and bizarre shit in the early 2000's. I was hella on board with MXC, Hey Spring of Trivia, and a bunch of other random nonsense shows. This show has more replay value than just about anything else.  This show is so fucking weird!!!  Why haven't these guys done anything else?  I partially don't understand it, and this is coming from someone who has watched it for.........13 years???!  Holy shit I have seen this for 13 years.

And the English dubbing.  Who the fuck thought of this??  Sometimes it's just going for comedy with fart or sex jokes.  Sometimes it's surprisingly smart.  It was super, super ahead of it's time.  These days the comedy would be so different.  In those days we didn't have Japanese shows that had been accurately translated.  Ripping on Japan is like a "thing" now, and I think widely spread because of the internet getting ahold of facts like those vending machines that sell used panties.  When I was younger, when I first discovered this show, it wasn't really like that.

But yeah, the dubbing.  It's so strange, like why did they do it like this?  They go for like an extreme sports angle, calling the action and all.  I think a modern incarnation, they'd be making fun of it.  They'd be riffing on it.  But the dubbing they did kind of makes you feel like the guys who did this show really liked the Japanese original.  And who wouldn't?  It's charming and bizarre, it's got Takeshi Kitano in it, it does have great falls, etc.

Then it's the things they added to the show.  The Ken-o-Tron.  Kenny Blankenship's Painful Eliminations of the Day.  The names.  Oh fuck the names!  What the hell, again?!  I love how NONE of them are even close to Asian.  Babaganoosh is one of their most common names!  WHY?!  I want to know!!!  Did I mention they invented the entire this team versus that team thing with the score and whatnot?  Yeah!  Originally, this was not a competition among the people on the show, it was the hosts (Takeshi Kitano and another guy) against all the people on the courses.  So they made up and added a lot to this show.

This might not make sense if you haven't seen it.  It's on YouTube, look it up.  Basically, it's an obstacle course type show that random contestants have to pass through.  Made in Japan, it features mostly Japanese contestants, and an all Japanese cast.  It was created by legendary Japanese actor "Beat" Takeshi Kitano, and is super, super fuckin weird.

The obstacle courses are classic, there's a mix of traditional ideas and really out there ideas in terms of the course, some of them look really physically challenging and some of them look more of a mind game.  But all feature lots of mud, water, and difficulty to get through.

I highly recommend this for drinking and smoking and friends.  The dubbing is funny, the show is fun to watch set apart from the dubbing, and there's 5 awesome seasons worth to watch online.  Don't get eliminated!